


Alianna

by Annabelle (annabelle_marie)



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 22:03:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14294427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabelle_marie/pseuds/Annabelle
Summary: Every story has to start somewhere. Every hero must have an origin. Every night must end in a sunrise.





	Alianna

**Author's Note:**

> This wandered into my head and wouldn't leave until I got it out and so here we are. I didn't really plan to post it originally but I figured I might as well. It's from Gorion's point of view but as a disclaimer I would like to state that I'm aware my writing style is more flowery and bright than the inner monologue of the average man, and it was more stream of consciousness than anything so overediting would just kill it. This is just something that I wrote for myself for fun so it's not really meant to be analyzed super thoroughly anyways.

The temple ahead appears abandoned, but I know that they’re inside. That she’s inside.

I pause mid-step, leaning heavily on my staff although I don’t need to. And I wonder if I really have it in me to kill her.

I still remember the way she was twenty years ago, my companion and, at one time, a woman I loved so much I thought she might be worth dying for. Oh, how fate has played me. I remember how she wore her silver-white hair pinned up, tendrils of curl slipping from their moorings to fall on her shoulders. Eyes bluer than the sky on a clear day, always shimmering with some sort of laughter. The lilac and sienna armors she favored, and spread behind her, her magnificent white wings.

I wonder what she looks like now, if her eyes have been darkened by corruption or her wings dirtied with blood. But I suppose it is of no consequence. The woman that I knew and loved is gone, no matter what her earthly body has become.

I raise my hand, knowing that I have wasted enough time, and we approach the dark temple once more. With grim faces, we take our positions, and at my signal, the doors are pushed open.

The moment we swarm inside, it becomes a bloodbath. A priestess falls to my left, and as her body slumps onto mine I shrug her off, barely registering as she hits the floor with a thud. I smack someone to the side with my staff almost as an afterthought, moving forward, further into the temple. My eyes lock onto one person and stay there.

I recognize Alianna immediately, even though I notice that her wings are gone. Sacrificed to her murderous god, perhaps, or simply so degraded with blood and filth that she had to remove them to survive. Her hair, now more silver than white, is twisted into an elaborate, tight updo with nary a hair out of place, that is unlike her, or at least unlike who she once was. Her eyes, still that endless cerulean blue, are bright with a fanaticism and a loss of sense that I have seen in others before, but never expected in her, even in my wildest nightmares.

She stands before a bloody altar, chanting zealously and perpetually even as her fellow worshippers fall to ash around her, cleaved by swords and burned by magic. The temple begins to catch flame.

And on the altar, just as I knew there would be, is a babe. The child cries loudly, proclaiming to the world the desire to live. Until this moment, I realize, I had hoped desperately to be wrong. I had wanted so badly to believe that Alianna would never have changed enough that she would sacrifice any child, let alone her own, even if the child is also born of murder.

There is no recognition in her eyes as I approach. There is little of anything in her eyes.

I know I can’t hesitate. I still mourn for the woman I once loved, but she is gone. And that woman, the Alianna I remember, would not have hesitated if our positions had been reversed.

So I unsheathe my sword and run her through. It is almost anticlimactic. Part of me expected it to hurt me physically as well. But in the end, there is no theater to Alianna’s death. One moment she stands, praying and screaming, and the next, there is simply a body at my feet.

The dead temple begins to catch flame in earnest as the battle rages on.

Alianna’s child is on the altar. Stepping up, I lift her as gently and firmly as I can, holding her close. Large grey eyes blink up at me, and she chokes on her own cries as she adjusts to this new experience. I hear the cries of other children, and I wish there was time to shepherd them to safety as well. But the fire rages on, all-consuming and thick, and there is no time. And I must save this child. For Alianna. For the woman she once was.

I turn back one last time, to watch the plume of smoke billowing into the sky, and allow myself to mourn for the woman I loved one last time.

And as the smoke clears, and the starlight shines down upon me and the now sleeping babe, I find something embroidered on one corner of the cloak she is wrapped in. Just one word. Just six letters. A name. Keyria.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, if you're here I assume you read this in its entirety so thank you! I really do appreciate it, I haven't posted anything over here in years (I orphaned my former stuff long ago, so it won't be listed under my profile). I might continue to write and post (more backstory or not) if I feel so inclined, we'll see <3


End file.
